


madness is a state of mind; depression is an illness

by typervoxilations



Series: poetry [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-17 06:17:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3518576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typervoxilations/pseuds/typervoxilations
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I’ll hitch my backpack up high and put one foot in front of the other because maybe, just maybe, my dreams are the journey instead of the destination.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	madness is a state of mind; depression is an illness

I’ll probably never be good enough.

Numbers lost and red letters are all I’ll ever be to disapproving frowns and the shaking of heads,   
because my head was built for words and not numbers,   
but that’s never what they wanted.   
I am not the clean art of calculated angles,   
but the wild tangle of thoughts and snapshot moments and explosions of color.

Eyes I’ve always wanted on me,   
always slid past me to something else   
someone else  
far away over my shoulder.   
And even though I let go,   
he was an unhealthy obsession like rusty iron barbs in my hands,   
and the wounds festered and the infection spread,   
leaves marks on my skin.   
I display them proudly because,   
look at this, they scream at the world,   
he has hurt me and I have survived.

Friends come and go like the tide   
and I’m left as damp sand and the husks of once beautiful seashells,   
wondering ‘maybes’ and ‘if onlys’.   
But they are consistent,   
gravitate towards me   
just as I will always be there   
for them to return.

There is a tight, dark, clawing despair in the cavity of my chest,   
and _God_ ,   
I hope no-one sees the way my smile trembles at the corners of my lips,   
I hope someone _does_ ,   
because I am on the edge of shattering   
and nothing is there to break my fall.   
My breath catches somewhere between a laugh and a scream   
because I don’t want to lie but the truth lodges in my throat   
like an errant fish-bone,   
digging deep and painful,   
and I can’t spit it out without tasting blood -   
can’t swallow it without the help of acid.   
So I smile,   
trembling smile,   
weak smile,   
false smile,   
until I, too, can believe that it’s real.

My dreams are waiting for me at the bottom of a bottle or two or ten,   
because I can only smile when there’s starlight and glitter in my veins;   
but I forget that by the time I see starlight, the star has already died   
and glitter clings to everything like it’s afraid of being forgotten.   
My dreams are on the horizon -   
I can see them but not when or where,   
if ever,   
I’ll catch them.   
I’ll hitch my backpack up high and put one foot in front of the other because maybe,   
just maybe,   
my dreams are the journey instead of the destination.

I’ll probably never be good enough,   
but it’ll never stop me from trying.


End file.
